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The American Chef Comes in Sixth

By Elaine Sciolino January 28, 2009 1:20 pmJanuary 28, 2009 1:20 pm

Paul Bocuse at the Bocuse d’Or competition on Tuesday. (Photo: Owen Franken for The New York Times)

Lyon, France —

After a two-day marathon of cooking and judging that pitted chefs from 24 countries against each other, the chef from Norway won the Bocuse d’Or, the Swede took the silver, the Frenchman the bronze and the American came in sixth.

Paul Bocuse, who created the competition in his name 22 years ago, and many of the top chefs here, both French and foreign, were rooting for the American team to get the gold. American victory would insure more American interest, investment and validation of the award.

But Timothy Hollingsworth, the 28-year-old American chef who is the sous-chef at the Napa Valley restaurant, French Laundry, did not fulfill his hopes.

In the previous 11 contests since 1987, a Frenchman has won the gold medal six times, a Norwegian three. Sweden and Luxembourg both won once. The Americans have never even won the silver or bronze; the best an American placed was sixth in 2005.

Geir Skeie, the 28-year-old chef at Mathuset Solvold in Sandefjord, Norway, will go home with a trophy of a golden effigy of Mr. Bocuse in his chef’s outfit and 20,000 euros, about $26,000.

There was a bittersweet twist for Mr. Hollingsworth’s boss, Thomas Keller, who was also a judge. The Swedish chef, Jonas Lundgren, once worked for him at the French Laundry before taking his current position at the restaurant Pierre Gagnaire in Paris. In the official press packet, Mr. Lundgren credited Mr. Keller as one of the sources of his culinary inspiration.

The biggest disappointment was felt by France. Philippe Mille, the 34-year-old Frenchman who is the sous-chef at the three-star Paris restaurant Le Meurice, was a strong candidate, and many expected him to win. But his fish dish came out a minute late, which cost the French team 12 points in the scoring, according to according to a text message from his boss, three-star chef Yannick Alléno.

The American team had money and prestige behind them, but in the end, the other teams were simply stronger this year.

Thomas Keller was a judge? And his Sous Chef was a competitor? And this was seen as okay?

If the goal of having an American win is to boost American interest and validation of the Bocuse d’Or, loading the panel with compassionate judges is not the way to do it.

No offense to Chef Keller who I presume is completely above board here, but still…

And yet with Daniel and Thomas at his backing, and with their fancy new test kitchen in Yountville, the Americans place 6th.

Congrats to Chef Hollingsworth for what is still an extraordinary achievement, yet I can’t help but wonder how much free press the French Laundry and Restaurant Daniel have gotten out of all of this. This is something I’ve wondered since they began this exercise in media manipulation many months ago.

It leaves more of a bitter taste in my mouth for TK and DB than for anything else, and proof again that the Bocuse d’Or is still the tops.

correction: the Swede was the silver medalist not a judge. I think I have it right now: the irony was (for TK, the American judge, the FL sous-chef competitor, and his boss Mr H) that the Swede had worked at the FL .

The food at Le Meurice in Paris is so good ! I never ate in a restaurant like that – excellent food, you feel relaxed and want to stay forever they treat everybody like royalities !
But a competition is a competition if the sous-chef was late he lost….
The French Laundry is much noise about nothing, snobbish, elitist and tooooooo expensive.

I just noticed that this blog has tags (I wanted to find all the Bocuse d’Or posts to read). But they’re really tiny. Maybe you can make them bigger or label them as such? I had to search for a while to find them.

Interesting dispatches. I especially liked the post about French culinary technique being at the base of most of the competitors and maybe that impedes truly regional cuisine. Maybe the competition should go on the road?

Anyway, 6th is respectable. It’s in the top 25%. Also, I agree that it’s not cool for TK to be a judge when his employee is competing.

Why don’t we hear more about Norway as a culinary destination? They’ve won three times, compared to none for the US, despite the fact that we have restaurants like Alinea, Michael Mina’s, and Thomas Keller’s FL and PS. Shouldn’t we be going to Oslo for dinner?

Was the judging somewhat blind? If so, the conflict of interest would be moot.

When it comes down to it, contests like these are rather silly. I’m sure all of these chefs are quite fine at what they do. One dish in one moment isn’t a true reflection of a chef’s skill or creativity over repetition and time.

Whether or not it is blind is irrelevant. TK knew which dish Hollingsworth would be preparing for a long time, and would have recognized it the minute he was eating it.

I think it’s still fair because the chefs of those restaurants represented by the competitors were mostly all there. Even if they were biased to their own, the biased scored would have canceled each other out.

Seems to me an easier way to do it would be to have just 23 judge each chef (24 minus the judge from the chef’s own country). But I guess having the low score thrown out is a way to prevent certain countries torpedoing others. Cooking contests are all so subjective, just like judging Aunt Mabel’s persimmon preserves at the Okalutta County Fair.